Belgrave Road

There are 37 Belgrave Roads in Greater London and 22 Belgrave Streets, as well as various Courts, Mews and Places. Undoubtedly all of them, like our own Belgrace Road in Plymouth, take their name from Belgrave Square in London.

This became a fashionable part of Westminster after the Duke of Westminster developed the site, and the area immediately surrounding it became known as Belgravia.

Belgrave was the name of property in Cheshire belonging to the Duke of Westminster’s estate – it is a hamlet south of Chester near the family seat at Eaton Hall. Before the Norman Conquest this name was Merdegrave, ‘marten’s grove’. But because it sounded uncomfortably like the French word for droppings – merde – the first part was changed to ‘Bel’, which has more attractive connotations.

EH 25 July 2000